Tea is generally prepared as green leaf tea or black leaf tea. The method of preparing such teas is well known to those skilled in the art. Generally, to prepare black leaf tea, fresh green leaves of the plant Camellia sinensis are withered (subjected to mild drying), comminuted, fermented (in which process enzymes in the leaf tea use atmospheric oxygen to oxidise various substrates to produce brown-coloured products) and then fired (to dry the tea leaves). Green leaf tea is not exposed to the fermentation process. Partial fermentation may be used to produce intermediate-type teas known as “oolong” tea.
Leaf teas, of whatever type, are normally constrained in terms of their properties by the location of their production, which usually limits the choice of tea varieties, agronomy and the manufacturing process used.
Leaf size is often seen as an indicator of quality with larger leaf teas being viewed by many consumers as being highest in quality. Unfortunately, however, traditional large-leaf tea is slow to infuse. Thus manufacturing technologies have been developed which are capable of producing large-leaf tea that has enhanced infusion performance, one example of which is the technology described in WO 02/069727 (UNILEVER).
Today tea based beverages can be prepared by methods other than infusing leaves in hot water and served in ways other than poured from tea pots. For example they can be made with concentrates or powders that are mixed with hot water in vending machines or used to prepare ready to drink teas in cans and bottles. A more recent development has seen the introduction of capsule-based systems wherein the tea is brewed within a disposable capsule by a specially designed brewing machine. Such a capsule-based system is described, for example, in WO 2007/042415 (NESTEC SA).
Meeting the consumer's demand for convenience (especially short brew times) from vending and capsule-based systems can be challenging and so technologies have been developed to fabricate leaf tea products by combining a base leaf tea with instant tea solids. For example WO 2004/002235 (UNILEVER) discloses a method for preparing a fabricated leaf tea product comprising mixing leaf tea with tea solids derived from tea powders, the method being characterised in that the mixture of tea leaves and tea powder is simultaneously wetted with water and dried.
The method of WO 2004/002235 is successful in producing fabricated leaf tea products with excellent infusion performance and appearance. However we have found that the method of WO 2004/002235 produces leaf teas which have low bulk density, especially if used to manufacture large leaf teas. This can be problematic, especially if the fabricated tea product is packaged for use in tea bags or capsules.
Thus we have sought to provide fabricated leaf tea products which, despite having a large leaf size and a high level of soluble solids, can be efficiently packed in tea bags or capsules.